Blues trades result of inconsistency, GM says

ST. LOUIS --The St. Louis Blues decided weeks ago they were going to be sellers heading into the NHL Trade Deadline, general manager Doug Armstrong said Saturday.

The Blues made their second trade in a week Friday when they sent centers Ryan O'Reilly and Noel Acciari to the Toronto Maple Leafs in a
three-team deal
that also included the Minnesota Wild. St. Louis received the rights to forward prospect
Josh Pillar
from the Wild for O'Reilly, then traded him and Acciari to the Maple Leafs for Toronto's first-round pick in the 2023 NHL Draft, a third-round pick this year, a second-round pick in the 2024 NHL Draft, and forwards
Mikhail Abramov
and
Adam Gaudette
.
O'Reilly and Acciari were traded after the Blues sent forward Vladimir Tarasenko and defenseman Niko Mikkola to the New York Rangers on Feb. 9 for forward Sammy Blais, defenseman prospect
Hunter Skinner
, a conditional first-round pick in the 2023 draft and a fourth-round pick in the 2024 draft.
"It was probably a little bit before that [when we decided to sell]," Armstrong said. "This year, we haven't been able to find ground zero. Good teams don't fluctuate the way we fluctuated. Win three, lose eight, win seven, lose five, win three. What that indicates to me is a team that doesn't have a foundation, and something to fall back on quickly when things are going bad.
"When things went bad, we allowed that snowball to gain momentum going downhill. And when things were going [well], that snowball gained momentum going downhill too. ... Great players' valleys are very close to their peak. There's not a lot of fluctuation in their game."
St. Louis won three in a row prior to a 4-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday, but it lost five straight in regulation from Jan. 21-30. The Blues (26-26-3) trail the Minnesota Wild by eight points for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference.
The NHL Trade Deadline is March 3 at 3 p.m. ET.
O'Reilly has 19 points (12 goals, seven assists) in 40 games this season. He won the Conn Smythe Trophy as MVP of the Stanley Cup Playoffs when he had 23 points (eight goals, 15 assists) in 26 games to help St. Louis defeat the Boston Bruins in seven games in the 2019 Cup Final.
Acciari has 18 points (10 goals, eight assists) in 54 games.
Players said they felt they had one more good run in them to try and make a playoff push this season, but reality set in when they lost O'Reilly, their captain, and Acciari, who signed as a free agent last summer and quickly became a popular teammate.
"It's tough," Blues defenseman Justin Faulk said. "Obviously, everyone knows what Ryan's meant to the organization and the guys in this locker. Same with Noel this year being new, but he fit right into the group. He's just a really good dude.
"It's tough that it's a situation that we put ourselves in, left ourselves open to these decisions for management to make. And we have to live with it. It's tough to see guys go. You never want to see that happen, especially guys that have meant so much to this team."
The Blues had 109 points last season and lost in the second round of the playoffs to the eventual Cup winner, the Avalanche, in six games. The thought was with minimal change, they would be right back in the thick of the Western Conference.
"That's the reality of what we did to ourselves this year, including those guys that obviously all got traded," St. Louis forward Brayden Schenn said. "We gave Doug a chance to go this route, which is on the players, is on us. When you've got pending UFAs and all that kind of stuff, that's just the nature of the business."
The Blues could make more moves before next season. They've accrued multiple picks, including three in the first round this year, that they could use at the 2023 NHL Draft to trade up or acquire impact players with term on their contracts.
Just like the Tarasenko trade, Armstrong said it was imperative to get a first-round pick for O'Reilly.
"Yes, the equity in the NHL now to have these first-round picks. We now have three," Armstrong said. "I wish I had a crystal ball where I could tell everyone how this is going to work out. We could use all three of those picks to select players, and all three of those players would then get put into our development process and then our American [Hockey] League team and then be in the NHL at some point and have long careers. Or they might be gone before their name is ever called.
"I don't know how it's going to play itself out. One thing that I do know that we're going do is if we move picks, players, it's not going to be for one-year players. We need to retrench with players 25, 26 and under that have term on their contracts so they can grow with that next core of players we have."